Real Reform for ECD in South Africa

Colourful wooden blocks painted as houses

Vision

Our vision is to have an enabling legal, policy and regulatory environment for the provision and expansion of ECD services to see all children in South Africa thriving and we believe that an enabling legal framework is one essential component of how to achieve this.

Mission

We develop our own solutions to the legal and regulatory challenges we face, we intend to use the tactical power of the law in our struggle to achieve our vision, we hope to be one of the leading grassroots voices on the legal and regulatory issues facing early childhood development programmes.

Our people

We want to be a movement of knowledgeable and empowered ECD practitioners, parents, caregivers and community members. We have identified NECDA, SmartStart and Bridge as key alliance organisations - powerful partners for realising our vision.

#MakeTheBillBetter Campaign

Real Reform for ECD was founded in response to a poorly drafted Children Amendment Bill (CAB) put before Parliament in 2020 which did not meet the needs of the ECD sector. The sector united in numbers, calling for the ECD sections of the CAB to be removed, with over 1600 submissions made to Parliament by mostly ECD practitioners.

In response to our submissions, the Department of Social Development withdrew the ECD sections of the CAB in 2021 and a Technical Task Team was set up consisting of Parliament, Department of Social Development (DSD), South African Local Government Association (SALGA), the Office of State Law Advisor, representatives of civil society and the Department of Basic Education (DBE) was set up. Organisations on Real Reform for ECD’s Steering Committee were represented on this Technical Task Team.

In 2024, we are finally seeing progress with the new CAB being gazetted and opened for public comment between May and June 2024. In 2020, we proposed Five Reforms to the CAB that would be crucial for the ECD sector. We have now done an analysis of how the new CAB fares against our Five Reforms and we are thrilled to say that the Bill has improved significantly. One significant amendment is a one-step registration process for ECD practitioners. This is a huge victory!

Real Reform for ECD made a submission to the DBE in support of the new draft Bill which was supported by over 100 people. Now is the time to keep up the pressure and ensure that the new CAB is tabled before Parliament before the end of 2024 and passed by 2025!

See our graphic to see how the new CAB fares against our Five Reforms.

Useful resources:

In 2020, as part of the #MakeTheBillBetter Campaign:

1600

submissions made

provinces represented

200

organisations signed on

key reforms advocated

The Right to Nutrition Campaign

Adequate nutrition is not just a need: It is a child’s right. Without proper nutrition, children are likely to be too short for their age (stunted). They are also more likely to do less well in school and to be less productive, earn less, and suffer more from diseases like diabetes and heart disease as adults.

The government provides a R17 per child per day subsidy to registered early learning programmes, of which R6.80 is intended for nutrition. But it reaches too few and is too little.

In late 2022, RR4ECD began to explore a campaign on the right to nutrition. We put together three research task teams to explore the right to nutrition, what adequate nutrition is and how the Department of Basic Education (DBE) could implement an ECD nutrition programme. This extensive research has informed the campaign’s approach and calls to action.

Download our synthesis report

Our call to action:

We urge the DBE to provide nutrition support to all eligible children attending an early learning programme, regardless of whether the programme is registered or not. We must not neglect the most vulnerable children, especially those at unregistered programmes, who stand the most to gain from nutrition support.

Spread the word about our campaigns!

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Right to Nutrition Campaign resources

The campaign explained
Poster 1 (English) · Poster 2 (English)
Poster 1 (Xhosa) · Poster 2 (Xhosa)
Poster 1 (Sotho) · Poster 2 (Sotho)
Poster 1 (Afrikaans) · Poster 2 (Afrikaans)
Our nutrition reforms
English poster · Xhosa poster · Sotho poster · Afrikaans poster
The evidence
English poster · Xhosa poster · Sotho poster · Afrikaans poster
The solution
Poster 1 (English) · Poster 2 (English)
Poster 1 (Xhosa) · Poster 2 (Xhosa)
Poster 1 (Sotho) · Poster 2 (Sotho)
Poster 1 (Afrikaans) · Poster 2 (Afrikaans)
Social media profile banners
Facebook · LinkedIn · Twitter
Campaign logo
Download · Other versions

#ECDManifesto campaign resources

People's Manifesto for ECD
Download (PDF)
ECD Manifesto Explainer
Download
ECD Manifesto Campaign Poster
Download (PDF)
ECD Manifesto Recommendations
Download
ECD Manifesto Whatsapp story banner
Download
ECD Manifesto Whatsapp profile picture
Download
ECD Manifesto Facebook banner
Download
ECD Manifesto Twitter banner
Download
ECD Manifesto LinkedIn banner
Download

#MakeTheBillBetter Resources (new draft CAB)

New draft Children's Amendment Bill
Download
Plain Language Explainer of the new draft CAB
Download
2020 Five Reforms
Download
2020 Five Reforms vs the New CAB
Download
New draft CAB Webinar
Watch

Other advocacy

Why do we urgently need a Second Children’s Amendment Bill? +

The Children’s Amendment Bill (B18-2020) proposed amendments in relation to a wide range of issues impacting on children, including amendments regarding partial care and ECD. The Bill did not address the Five Reforms needed for strengthening the ECD sector. It had the potential to create additional burdens and challenges for ECD providers. Challenges with the Bill included:

×

The registration process remains onerous.
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Different types of ECD provisioning are not recognised - "One-size-fits-all" approach is entrenched.
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Inaccessible health and safety standards have not been reviewed and streamlined.
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Conditional registration provisions are entirely unclear.
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Provisions aimed at unlocking support to ECD providers are weakened.
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Explicit ban on infrastructure funding support to partial care facilities run from private homes.

Key reading

The most relevant law, regulations and policy documents can be accessed here:

Make your voice heard →

Click infographic to view full size

We support five key reforms +

1

We need a one-step registration process for ECD providers and different types of ECD providers must be regulated differently.
2

All children attending any type of ECD programme should be able to access the early learning subsidy if they need it.
3

Simpler, adequate health, safety and programme standards must be in place and must be accessed through one process.
4

It must be made clear that you can get conditional registration if you can’t meet all the registration requirements and MECs must support providers to meet requirements and report on their systems of support.
5

The infrastructure needs of the sector must be supported.

Do you agree?

Make your voice heard →

Click infographic to view full size

Get ECD in your local municipality’s IDP +

Between the months of March and April, local municipalities are busy preparing their Integrated Development Plan (IDP). This is a plan that will outline the development areas that local municipalities will focus on for the next five years. The aim of this campaign is to have ECD included as a core focus area.

Many of our challenges with ECD programme registration lie at the local government level : there are impossible land-use requirements (zoning), excessive costs for building plans, high fees as well as onerous health and safety requirements. Local governments are also not enabling the expansion of ECD programmes. They are not supporting ECD programmes with infrastructure upgrades nor are they supporting with new ECD builds (as required by the ECD policy) and ECD does not feature in local government planning or budgets.

We are calling on all organisations, ECD practitioners, teachers, parents and caregivers to contact their local municipality and to call on councillors to:

Pull down the barriers to registration for ECD programmes;
Build more and upgrade existing ECD programmes; and
Make ECD a local spending priority.

Key resources

Resources +

Download and share these infographics and other resources to spread the word.

The challenges
Afrikaans · English · Zulu
How the Bill fails the ECD sector
English
Our Five Reforms
English
Phrase guide
English
Campaign logo
Download · Other versions

Who's involved?

We are a broad-based alliance made up of dedicated elected representatives who form the Steering Committee to lead Real Reform’s work, supported by over 200 organisations .

Greater Soweto Association for Early Childhood Development

Representatives: Rina (Mehlomakhulu) Mato (Ilifa Labantwana), Tatiana Kazim (Equal Education Law Centre), Kayin Scholtz (Umncedi), Tess Peacock (Equality Collective), Hopolang Selebalo (SmartStart), Nonhlanhla Dzingwa (Sisonke ECD forum), Mandla Nkosi (Greater Soweto Forum), Boipelo Lekwane (individual capacity), Carol Dlamini (individual capacity), Mmatsetshweu Ruby Motaung (Tree-ECD), Sheniece Linderboom (Legal Resources Centre)

View all signatories → Join us now →

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Real Reform for Early Childhood Development (ECD) in South Africa